


There is something delicious about writing the first words of a story

by middlemarch



Category: Frozen (Disney Movies), GLOW (TV 2017), Little Women (2019), Little Women Series - Louisa May Alcott, Mercy Street (TV), The Hour (TV)
Genre: 5 Sentence Fiction, F/M, Family, Gen, Humor, Marriage, Novel: Dangerous Secrets: The Story of Iduna and Agnarr - Mari Mancusi, Romance, first line fic prompt, references to Hallmark holiday movies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:55:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 1,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28479531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlemarch/pseuds/middlemarch
Summary: A series of vignettes, with the first sentence sent as a prompt. From Tumblr.
Relationships: Agnarr/Iduna (Disney), Anna & Olaf (Disney), Emma Green & Mary Phinney, Emma Green/Frank Stringfellow, Emma Green/Henry Hopkins, Freddie Lyon/Bel Rowley, Friedrich Bhaer/Josephine March, Sam Sylvia/Ruth Wilder, Theodore Laurence/Amy March
Comments: 12
Kudos: 10





	1. Chapter 1

"No one could mistake that shade of red," Jo said, peering disconsolately into the glass. She blew her nose again, wishing it didn’t sound as emphatic as it verily must. “Not when Amy’s sure to be splendid as Venus herself.”

“Mrs. Theodore Laurence, hosting a ball on the half-shell?” Fritz laughed. “She may be a goddess, Josephine, but thou art _meine perle_.”


	2. Chapter 2

She hid the orange in his boot, wishing her fumbling in the dark might wake him but contented enough to know he would find it in the morning and know she had been there. Iduna crept back to her bed and pulled the embroidered coverlet up to her chin. The night was very cold, very dark, the day’s light poured down into a tea-cup, the winter all around them, no matter how many tapers the servants lit in the Great Hall. The King needed to believe in his power, but Iduna knew true strength: the clouds that held snow, the fruit beneath the peel ready to burst with juice. Agnarr would know it too—and know who taught the lesson and made the promise.


	3. Chapter 3

"I have too been places; just this year I toured Genovia, Belmont, Aldovia, Belgravia and Montenaro."

“Olaf, that can’t be my answer--no one will believe me if I say that!” Anna exclaimed. “They all know I’ve spent the year in Arendelle and Northuldra. It’s a matter of public record.”

“Not if you were traveling incognito, Queen Anna—on a mission you aren’t at liberty to discuss,” the snowman replied, looking as canny as he ever had, which wasn’t very much because he was essentially an enchanted snowball times three.

“No one will ever believe I travelled anywhere incognito—I’m not known for my subtlety or discretion,” Anna said, a little sad that she was telling the unvarnished, incontrovertible truth and a little relieved.


	4. Chapter 4

As she came undone his arms were around her, anchoring her, as the pleasure washed over her in what he surely would call holy waters if he had the breath. The room was filled with the pale blue light the moon cast when she was high above, gentle on the worn oak floorboards, the fraying seams of the awkwardly pieced quilt. She kept her eyes closed, even though it was weeks past the wedding. 

“Oh, God. Forgive me. He—”

“Hush, Emma, hush,” Frank murmured, letting his lips brush against her cheek, the fragrant black silk of her hair, her lips that tasted of salt and whiskey and honey.


	5. Chapter 5

He unwrapped the gift carefully, working the layers of brown paper and yards of ribbons as if it was surgery, and just as anxious about the outcome. He knew Mary had wrapped it so that every bit of it could be put to use, the paper smoothed out, the ribbons pressed, stitched across the brim of a bonnet or fashioned into what Emma would call “the sweetest, cunning little rosette” to his utter bafflement. She hadn’t been made to be a minister’s wife, Emma Green Hopkins, though she’d never complain. Not about the stubborn range or the surfeit of turnips, the hours spent on parish calls, the hours he spent struggling with the next week’s sermon, wishing he could throw the inkstand across his study, the very few letters she received from Virginia and Texas.

“Oh, Henry, how lovely, it’s the loveliest christening gown I’ve ever seen!” Emma exclaimed softly, careful not to wake the dark-haired baby in the crook of her arm.


	6. Chapter 6

Bel caught her breath, and thought that she should be able to deliver herself of some other response than the familiar: "You are impossible, Freddie!"

“Look, I tried asking for an Aphra Behn costume, but the girl stared at me like I had two heads. No, three, and one speaking Swahili,” Freddie said. He should have looked foolish, a fop in his D’Artagnan get-up, but he was dashing, the plume curling just so, casting a shadow across his cheekbone. He rested his hand on his fake scabbard so casually Bel found herself wondering if it could truly hold steel.

“I expect the wig will itch dreadfully and I’ll freeze in this, but at least it’s not a bloody rug,” Bel said, but she reached out to take Cleopatra’s sheath from Freddie’s grasp, basking in the expression in his dark eyes, his unspoken, undeniable desire.


	7. Chapter 7

The snowstorm outside showed no sign of letting up any time soon. Lou was snugly tucked up on the sofa in front of the fire, a freshly made pot of tea set before her. The fire snapped in the hearth, everything gold and amber, Frederick reading aloud from _The Moonstone_. Anne was restless, wishing for something she could not name. She walked over to the windows and parted the velvet drapes, looking out into a world that was white and cold and real; a danger, beckoning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by BroadwayBaggins "Those unheard are sweeter" (https://archiveofourown.org/works/23914876)
> 
> The Moonstone (1868) by Wilkie Collins is a 19th-century British epistolary novel. It is an early modern example of the detective novel, and established many of the ground rules of the modern genre. The story was serialised in Charles Dickens's magazine All the Year Round. Collins adapted The Moonstone for the stage in 1877.


	8. Chapter 8

"A snowman didn't kill our parents," she sighed, tired of repeating it every year, their own strange Christmas tradition. Ruth had a lot of regrets in life, had made a lot of crappy decisions, but right now, with Sheila in London and Melrose rediscovering Judaism, she’d been drafted into the revamped annual Eden holiday special as the lead and she had never missed playing Scrooge more.

“You’re phoning it in, Ruth. Give it some fucking juice,” Sam said, as irritated as he’d ever been but minus any true nastiness. They’d gotten good at this, or rather, he’d mastered it, being the director in the studio, the colleague in the writer’s room, the husband and paella-maker at home. 

“Fine. A _snowman_ didn’t kill our parents,” she said, drawing out the words like she was Lady MacBeth and really just thinking about the beguiling scent of the paella, Sam’s hand batting hers away from his single glass of heart-healthy merlot; the prospect of snow at the cabin, the darkness of the long winter night and Sam’s eyes, even darker.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In 2015's "A Prince for Christmas," the younger sister tells the older one "A Christmas tree didn't kill our parents" which made my whole family burst out laughing.


	9. Chapter 9

The weather was warm enough that in twenty minutes time he had rolled his shirtsleeves up and donned a hat, thinking how much cooler this same month would be six states north in his hometown.

“Anna, are you sure about where everything’s going? Because I’m melting already and I can’t imagine digging it all up again in an hour,” Kristoff said, taking a swig from the bottle of ginger shrub, which Anna promised was an old family recipe and just as good, no, twice as good as Gatorade and it wouldn’t turn your mouth a funny color. He’d drunk worse but it was only okay, no matter how Anna raved about it.

“I’m following Professor Yelana’s instructions to the letter, Kristoff—she’s the one with the experience in botany and grafting and I know which side my bread is buttered on and which side will fall butter side down,” Anna protested, in a terrible hurry, mixing and mangling idioms in a way that should have sounded idiotic and was instead only terribly, meltingly adorable.

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from Beatrix Potter


End file.
